The IR thinker is an independent, non-partisan and non-aligned podcast exploring international relations through conversations with leading scholars and practitioners. It offers diverse perspectives without endorsing any political party, government or ideology. Founded and hosted by IR scholar and lecturer Martin Zubko as a pro bono initiative in 2023, it has surpassed 100 episodes and is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
In this episode, John Roberts examines Azerbaijan’s evolving role in regional energy security, from its traditional position as an oil and gas exporter to emerging opportunities in electricity and renewable energy.
John explores the geopolitical significance of Azerbaijan’s energy partnerships with the European Union, Türkiye, Russia, Iran, Central Asia and China, and considers whether the country can successfully transform itself into a diversified regional energy hub.
John M. Roberts is a leading European energy security specialist and researcher, with particular expertise in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Caspian energy corridors. He is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and a Senior Partner at Methinks Ltd, a consultancy specialising in the relationship between energy, economic development and politics. John has extensive experience analysing the intersection of energy, economic development and geopolitics. He has advised and testified on Turkish, Russian, Caspian, Middle Eastern and Kurdish energy security, and has particular expertise in the pipelines connecting, or intended to connect, the Caspian region with Europe, Russia, China and India. He previously served as Managing Editor at Platts and worked with Financial Times Energy, focusing on energy development and the impact of energy on economic development. His publications include Caspian Pipelines (1996), Visions & Mirages: The Middle East in a New Era (1995), and Pipeline Politics: The Caspian and Global Energy Security (2014).
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:54 Baku–Novorossiysk Pipeline [oil]
05:29 Baku–Supsa Pipeline [oil]
08:03 Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline [oil]
10:47 Baku–Kulevi Rail Corridor [oil]
12:22 Hajigabul–Astara Pipeline [gas]
14:21 Hajigabul–Gazakh–Saguramo Pipeline [gas]
15:08 Hajigabul–Shirvanovka–Mozdok Pipeline [gas]
16:13 South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) [gas]
21:15 Iğdır–Nakhchivan Pipeline [gas]
23:50 Azerbaijan’s Oil and Gas: Significance for the European Union
35:09 Declining Oil Production in Azerbaijan: Challenges and Prospects
39:08 Black Sea Energy Cable
46:31 Azerbaijan and Central Asia: The Uzbek Energy Market
52:18 Could Azerbaijan Revive Its Nuclear Energy Ambitions?
Uncertainty, Intentions and Great Power Conflict — Sebastian Rosato
Season 4 · Episode 24
Tuesday, August 18, 2026 • Duration 57:44
How certain can great powers ever be about the intentions of their rivals, and what happens when that uncertainty becomes a permanent feature of international politics? In this episode, Professor Sebastian Rosato joins us to discuss 'intentions pessimism', the limits of information, and what uncertainty means for great-power conflict, diplomacy, and the study of international relations.
Sebastian Rosato is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
02:10 Is 'intentions pessimism' a structural or epistemological argument—or are the two inseparable?
04:38 Endemic uncertainty in international relations
06:33 The role of first- and secondhand information
12:48 Waltzian neorealism vs. 'intentions pessimism'
15:27 Has 'intentions pessimism' changed Professor Rosato's stance on IR?
18:11 Is 'intentions pessimism' applicable to great powers only?
Who Controls Africa’s Food? Rethinking Food Security, Trade & Agriculture — David Luke
Season 4 · Episode 23
Tuesday, August 11, 2026 • Duration 36:48
Why is Africa still importing so much of the food it consumes? What is holding back trade in food and agricultural products between African countries? In this interview, we speak with Professor David Luke, editor of How Africa Eats: Trade, Food Security and Climate Risks, an open-access book published by LSE Press.
We discuss the causes of food insecurity across Africa, the role of agricultural investment, and the barriers that make it difficult for African countries to trade food with one another. Professor Luke explains why non-tariff barriers matter, where intra-African food trade falls short, and what the AfCFTA could mean for African agriculture.
The conversation also covers Africa’s approach to the WTO, the future of the Malabo Declaration, countries making progress in agricultural transformation, and China’s role in African agriculture. The interview concludes with a discussion of where research on African agriculture should go next.
David Luke is Professor in Practice and Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, LSE and Extraordinary Professor at North-West University, South Africa, specialising in African trade policy, trade negotiations, and development.
The Future of Global Governance: BRICS, AI, Middle Powers & World Order — Miles Kahler
Season 4 · Episode 22
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 • Duration 01:09:20
In this episode, Professor Miles Kahler discusses the future of global governance in an era of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, shifting power balances, and growing challenges to the post-1945 international order. Drawing on his recent paper, Global Governance in the Twenty-First Century: Sustain, Reform, Transform, he examines whether existing international institutions can still adapt or whether new forms of cooperation will be required.
Professor Miles Kahler is Research Professor-in-Residence and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the School of International Service, American University. He is also a Non-resident Scholar in the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on international institutions, global governance, international political economy, regionalism, and the evolution of the international order. He has written extensively on global governance, international cooperation, and the political economy of globalisation, and is widely recognised as one of the leading scholars in the study of international institutions.
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional: Brazilian IR Journal — Haroldo Ramanzini Júnior
Season 4 · Episode 21
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 • Duration 47:15
Published by the Brazilian Institute of International Relations since 1958, the Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (Brazilian Journal of International Politics, also known as RBPI) has spent nearly seven decades serving as a vital bridge between Latin American scholarship and global debates on international affairs.
The journal has also reached several important milestones, including its transition to open access, the adoption of English as a publication language, and its integration into the SciELO digital publishing platform. These developments have significantly expanded its international reach and influence.
Haroldo Ramanzini Júnior is a Brazilian political scientist specialising in Brazilian foreign policy, regionalism, and Latin American international relations, and serves as Associate Professor at the Institute of International Relations at the University of Brasília.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:16 The Intellectual Identity of RBPI
04:46 What Makes RBPI Unique Among Latin American IR Journals?
10:31 Maintaining Thematic and Conceptual Coherence
12:49 Brazil's Foreign Policy, Latin America, and Global Perspectives
15:03 Emerging Intellectual Trends in Submissions
17:00 Which Research Topics Are Growing Most Rapidly?
America's Role in Post-Soviet Russia: The Untold Story — Daniel Satinsky
Season 4 · Episode 20
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 • Duration 01:21:25
In 1989, an American cultural institute helped arrange Boris Yeltsin's first trip to the United States — and a single visit to a supermarket may have changed the course of Soviet history. Thus, what is the untold story of America's involvement in the transformation of the Soviet Union?
Daniel Satinsky is an independent scholar, retired attorney and retired business consultant. He began his career in the Soviet Union, then Russia, as part of a US-Russia telecom joint venture in 1991 and then continued with business and consulting projects in Russia up to 2014.
Over those years he traveled extensively across the country from Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Central Russia Golden Ring cities, the Urals and Siberia. Subsequently, he has been researching and writing about the interaction between Americans and Russians in this unique historical period.
After publishing his most recent book, Creating the Post Soviet Russian Market Economy: Through American Eyes, he has developed an oral history of interviews with foreigners active in Russia during the late 1980s through the early 2000s, available online as The Satinsky Archive, now including 55 in-depth interviews.
He was Chairman of the Board of the US Russia Chamber of Commerce of New England from 2000 – 2014 and currently is a Local Affiliate of the Davis Center at Harvard.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
Racism Without the Word — Somdeep Sen
Season 4 · Episode 19
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 01:01:11
After 9/11, the word "terrorism" replaced older colonial vocabularies — but the racial logic underneath stayed intact. Dr Somdeep Sen of Roskilde University joins The IR thinker to show how concepts such as development, security, and the War on Terror continue to sort the world along racial lines, even when race itself goes unnamed. From NATO's global colour line to China's reproduction of Western hierarchies within the Global South, this conversation maps the hidden architecture of race in contemporary IR.
Dr Sen is Associate Professor in International Development Studies at Roskilde University, whose research explores race and racism in international relations, settler colonialism, liberation movements, and postcolonial theory.
02:34 - How IR Erased Race — Deliberately and Systematically
07:09 - Why "sanitised" Language Still Encodes Racial Hierarchy
When AI Fights, the War Never Ends — Myriam Dunn Cavelty
Season 4 · Episode 18
Tuesday, June 23, 2026 • Duration 01:03:23
Artificial intelligence is redrawing the boundaries of cybersecurity — accelerating attacks, complicating attribution, and compressing the time humans have to make decisions that matter.
In this episode, Myriam Dunn Cavelty of ETH Zurich examines AI-driven conflict, the politics behind critical infrastructure protection, the limits of European governance, and what it means when cyber war has no clear start and no clear finish.
Myriam Dunn Caveltyis a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Security Studies at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Her research examines the political and societal implications of digital technologies, with a particular focus on cyber security, cyber warfare, critical infrastructure protection, and technology governance. She also serves as co-editor-in-chief of Contemporary Security Policy.
African Affairs Journal: History, Trends, and the Peer Review Process — Jonathan Fisher
Season 4 · Episode 17
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 • Duration 45:03
Today, it is a real pleasure to speak with Professor Jonathan Fisher, co-editor ofAfrican Affairs — one of the leading journals in the field of African Studies. African Affairs is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London-based Royal African Society.
It was established as the Journal of the African Society in 1901, then it was published as the Journal of the Royal African Society from 1936 until it obtained its current name in 1944.
The journal is broadly interdisciplinary, with a primary focus on the politics and international relations of sub-Saharan Africa, though it also draws on sociology, anthropology, economics, history, literature, and the arts where these illuminate debates on contemporary Africa.
Co-Editors
George M. Bob-Milliar
Jonathan Fisher
Amanda Lea Robinson
Gabrielle Lynch
Impact Factor: 2.2 / 5-Year Impact Factor: 2.7
Indexed: Scopus / Web of Science
Jonathan Fisher is Professor of Global Security at the University of Birmingham where he also serves as Deputy Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer for the College of Social Sciences.
His research centres on the role of ideas and legitimacy within authoritarian systems, with extensive fieldwork across eastern Africa, where his work has examined how guerrilla heritage shapes contemporary governance, conflict, and cooperation, as well as the growing phenomenon of digital authoritarianism.
Publishing in Regional & Federal Studies Journal — Davide Vampa & Mariely Lopez-Santana
Season 4 · Episode 16
Tuesday, June 9, 2026 • Duration 01:08:00
Today, it is a real pleasure to speak with the editorial team of Regional & Federal Studies, one of the leading journals in the field of territorial politics, regionalism, and federalism.
The journal was established in 1991 as Regional Politics and Policy: An International Journal focusing on regionalism in Western Europe. In 1995, the journal changed its name to Regional and Federal Studies, expanding its focus and scope.
Impact Factor: 1.4 / 5-Year Impact Factor: 1.6
Indexed: Scopus / Web of Science
First Decision: 40 days
Acceptance Rate: 28%
Davide Vampa, Lead Editor of the journal and Senior Lecturer in Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he also serves as Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change and Chair of the ECPR Standing Group on Federalism and Regionalism, as well as Mariely Lopez-Santana, Deputy Lead Editor and Associate Professor of Political Science at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, USA.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:45 The Journal’s Intellectual Identity
06:01 How the Journal Adapted to a Changing Field
08:33 Managing Breadth and Coherence Across Federalism, Regionalism, and Multilevel Governance
10:43 Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: Bridging Political Science and Beyond
14:02 Theory or Empirics? Balancing Conceptual Innovation and Case-Based Research
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01:58 When Are Institutional Reforms No Longer Enough?
05:16 Can Middle Powers Shape a New Global Order?
10:21 Consensus-Based Multilateralism vs. Plurilateral Cooperation
16:15 Why Is BRICS Less Coherent Than Expected in Global Governance?
22:20 Why Do Countries Join BRICS? Choice or Necessity?
29:19 How Technology and Supply Chains Are Redefining Spheres of Influence
34:30 The Future of Values and Interests in Global Governance
41:41 Does the Liberal International Order Need an Upgrade?
46:11 Strengthening Regional Governance: Rules, Norms, and Institutions
52:38 AI and the Future of Global Governance
59:59 Has International Relations Neglected Domestic Politics?
01:05:41 Underexplored Research Agendas in Global Governance
A clarifying note at 13:18: "COP 30 reached agreement on several issues, such as a work program on climate finance, but it was not able to reach consensus on a roadmap transitioning from fossil fuels. That issue that led to the Santa Marta Conference, a coalition of the willing that aimed to phase out fossil fuels."
